Heriberto Sedeno, P.A. v. Mijares

333 S.W.3d 815, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 10132, 2010 WL 5187737
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 23, 2010
DocketNo. 01-10-00374-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 333 S.W.3d 815 (Heriberto Sedeno, P.A. v. Mijares) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Heriberto Sedeno, P.A. v. Mijares, 333 S.W.3d 815, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 10132, 2010 WL 5187737 (Tex. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION

EVELYN V. KEYES, Justice.

Appellant, Heriberto Sedeño, P.A. (“Sedeño, P.A.”), appeals the trial court’s denial of its motion to dismiss the claims of appellee, Genoveva Mijares, against Sede-no, P.A. under section 74.351 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code.1 In [816]*816two issues, Sedeño, P.A. argues that it was entitled to a mandatory dismissal of Mi-jares’s claims against it because (1) her claims against Sedeño, P.A. are health care liability claims that require service of an expert report under section 74.351 and (2) Mijares failed to timely file an expert report.

We reverse.

Background

Mijares filed her original petition on November 5, 2007, against Heriberto Sedeño, M.D. (“Dr. Sedeño”) and Sedeño, P.A., alleging that Dr. Sedeño sexually assaulted her when she visited his office to address her problems with high blood pressure. Mijares pled causes of action for sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Dr. Sedeño and against Sedeño, P.A., arguing that it was “jointly and severally liable for the actions of its officer and/or agent” Dr. Sedeño.

Mijares filed a second amended petition on February 25, 2008, adding a cause of action against both Dr. Sedeño and Sede-ño, P.A. for gross negligence. She alleged that Sedeño, P.A. “allowed [Dr. Sedeño] to be unsupervised with female patients despite its knowledge of [Dr. Sedeno’s] sexual proclivities” and that such gross negligence was the proximate cause of her injuries. On March 28, 2008, and again on September 26, 2008, the trial court entered a protective order in the civil case preventing discovery until the resolution of the criminal charges against Dr. Sedeño.2 Trial of the civil case was set for November 2009. However, on October 30, 2009, Sedeño filed a suggestion of bankruptcy and the trial court proceedings were stayed.3 Once the stay was lifted, trial was reset for May 2010.

On February 8, 2010, the parties entered into an agreed docket control order that set May 10, 2010, as the date by which all dispositive motions and pleas must be set for hearing or submission.

On February 12, 2010, Mijares filed her third amended petition, which raised for the first time claims of negligence against Sedeño, P.A. On March 29, 2010, Mijares filed her fourth amended petition, in which she alleged that, on the date of the assault, an employee of Sedeño, P.A. led Mijares into an examination room and left her there “alone and isolated” and that Dr. Sedeño “entered the examining room alone and unsupervised.”

Mijares alleged that:
[Dr. Sedeño then] requested that [Mi-jares] pull down her skirt and bend over the examination table so that he could administer a B12 shot into her hip. Although confused by his request, [Mi-jares] followed [Dr. Sedeno’s] orders.
While [Mijares] was bent over the examination table, [Dr. Sedeño] pulled his pants down and raped her. [Dr. Sede-ño] subsequently ejaculated onto [Mi-jares] and her clothing and quickly left the room.

Mijares’s fourth amended petition reasserted her causes of action for sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Dr. Sedeño and Sedeño, P.A.

Mijares also alleged negligence against Sedeño, P.A., claiming that it “owed a duty to [Mijares] to exercise reasonable care to provide security and safety to [Mijares] [817]*817while she was visiting” the office. Her fourth amended petition stated that Sede-ño, P.A. “retained control over the premises, business and safety operations of the offices,” that it “had knowledge that other similar occurrences had occurred in the immediate vicinity,” that it knew or should have known that Dr. Sedeño was “suffering from depression and other mental and psychiatric conditions that made him mentally or emotionally incompetent to perform the functions of an unsupervised physician [sic ],” that Dr. Sedeño was “taking numerous sample medications from the clinic without a prescription” and “had a continuing problem of drug usage that affected his ability to function as a medical doctor,” that Sedeño, P.A. knew or should have known that Dr. Sedeño “was not mentally or emotionally competent to safely perform unsupervised activity in the clinic with females” and that he “would not be able to respect the person and/or body of [Mijares] while she was isolated in an examining room,” and that Sedeño, P.A. “owed a duty to [Mijares] not to place her in a situation that the risk of sexual abuse was heightened.” The petition stated:

The assault described above occurred directly and proximately as a result of the negligence of [Sedeño, P.A.] in each and all of the following particulars:
1. In failing to keep proper safety and security measures on the premises;
2. In failing to have female clients accompanied by a female staff member at all times;
3. In failing to make the office secure from sexual predators;
4. In failing to properly monitor clients/patients while at the office;
5. In failing to provide proper supervision over its employee [Dr. Sede-ño]; and
6. In creating an unsafe environment that allowed an unstable male to be alone with [Mijares] in an isolated room.

Mijares alleged a cause of action for invasion of privacy rights against Dr. Sedeño and Sedeño, P.A. based on Dr. Sedeno’s actions. Finally, Mijares alleged a cause of action for gross negligence against Dr. Sedeño and Sedeño, P.A., again based on Dr. Sedeno’s sexual assault and Sedeño, P.A.’s wrongful conduct in allowing Dr. Sedeño “to be unsupervised with female clients despite its knowledge of [Dr. Sede-no’s] sexually deviant proclivities.”

On May 5, 2010, Sedeño, P.A. filed its motion to dismiss, arguing that Mijares’s claims were health care liability claims covered by Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, that Mijares had failed to file an expert report as required by section 74.351, and that, thus, Sedeño, P.A. was entitled to mandatory dismissal of Mijares’s claims against it. Mijares responded, arguing in part that her claims were not health care liability claims and that Sedeño, P.A.’s motion to dismiss was untimely pursuant to an agreed docket control order filed with the trial court on February 8, 2010, which required all dis-positive motions and pleas to be set for hearing or submission by May 10, 2010. Sedeño, P.A. unsuccessfully attempted to schedule a hearing on the motion to dismiss for May 10, 2010. The hearing was eventually held on May 12, 2010.

On May 12, 2010, the trial court signed an order denying Sedeño, P.A.’s motion to dismiss. The order contained the handwritten notation that the motion was denied “because the motion was not set for hearing in a timely manner under the agreed DCO.”

On May 14, 2010, Sedeño, P.A. filed a motion for reconsideration, asking the trial court to reconsider its denial of the motion to dismiss, arguing that the docket control order does not affect its right to mandato[818]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
333 S.W.3d 815, 2010 Tex. App. LEXIS 10132, 2010 WL 5187737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/heriberto-sedeno-pa-v-mijares-texapp-2010.